AdrianCarr.com ^1.0

Several months ago, I wrote a post about hiring and retaining good people, and that post has gotten a bit of traffic. Some of those ideas were from companies that had some money to burn. Well, things were a little better then, as far as the economy was concerned, so here's an updated version that assumes you're on some sort of budget. Obviously, I don't know your budget, and the application will vary from company to company, but a lot of these will fit no matter what your company looks like. This is coming from the perspective of technology workers, but a lot of this applies elsewhere as well.

Imagine you're an IT manager at a company that doesn't have a lot of extra cash. Let's assume you aren't giving away free food all the time, you aren't giving away free iPhones, and you don't have a 410k match either, but you need to hire someone, or make sure you keep the people you have.

What do you do? At this point, you probably can't outright buy the people because you're constrained by money. Well, believe it or not, it's not all about money when it comes to hiring and retaining good people. Actually, in the original post, where I captured different perks that companies were using, most of them were directly related to the culture of the company. Money and benefits are a piece of the pie when people look for jobs (or look for a different job), but two other big factors are the workplace culture and the nature of the work that people do every day. This is a partial list, and I don't have the time to extend it as much as I would like, but here it is.

• Educate developers on the business side of things. We understand technology. Let us help you by teaching us the business. Let us help solve this company's problems, and at a minimum, you'll get better software out of us if we understand your job and the company better.
• Let people work in other areas of the business sometimes. This exposes them to other parts of the company that they may know nothing about.
• Teach employees about the history of the company, and help people understand their part in continuing that history.
• Buy big popcorn makers. This is a really cheap way to give snacks to the employees. You may have to fight your facilities people on this one, because the first time I tried to get one, I was told "it's a fire hazard" or something like that.
• Loosen the vacation and sick time (from Motley Fool) -The Fool's vacation/sick policy is pretty straightforward: take what you need. That's right, as long as you get your work done and consult with your supervisor in advance (if you're going to be sick, we'd like to know in advance, but we understand it doesn't always work that way...unfortunately...), you may take any reasonable amount of time off. With pay, of course. Huh? Unlimited paid time off? What's the catch? Well... nothing, actually. Fools treat themselves, their company and their co-workers with fairness and respect, so you will not abuse such a wonderfully Foolish benefit.
• Monthly peanut butter and jelly sandwich days, with 25 to 30 varieties each of peanut butter and jelly and a dozen breads to choose from; (from Motley Fool)
• Office Rock-Paper-Scissors tourney (from Motley Fool)
• Make your software release process simple, fast, and sane.
• Take a look at everything you do and think from a lean perspective.
• Minimize the time from "concept to cash", or idea to fruition.
• Abolish rules that you don't really need.
• Does your company sell things? Have good, fun employee sales. Give some great deals on some stuff the company doesn't need anymore.
• Allow employees to buy old computers or laptops when they get outdated.
• Allow people to reconfigure the work areas, even if they have to do it on their own time.
• Loosen your technology choice limitations.